Food accelerator program gives entrepreneurs a boost during COVID-19

August 21, 2020

York University’s food accelerator program is the first of its kind in Ontario to help Canadian business owners with products in market scale up rapidly, giving them a much-needed jumpstart in a food industry challenged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The York Region Food and Beverage Accelerator Program kicks off this month with eight companies, six of them led by women. Participation in the program is also diverse, with six of the companies led by visible minorities.

Isabelle Lam and Jamie Lee are co-founders of Remix, one of eight companies in York University's food accelerator program. — Isabelle Lam and Jamie Lee are co-founders of Remix, one of eight companies in York University’s food accelerator program

The program is led by York’s YSpace, a Markham-based community innovation hub designed to bring together entrepreneurs and community builders, and is a partnership with The Regional Municipality of York and the Canadian Agricultural Partnership, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative.

The accelerator program is funded through a $106,000 grant from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, along with funding from York Region, the York Region Entrepreneur and Innovation Fund, through ventureLAB, and the cities of Vaughan and Markham.

“The need for our Food and Beverage Accelerator Program is greater than ever because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said David Kwok, associate director of entrepreneurship at Innovation York and YSpace. “Business owners are concerned about smaller retailers closing their doors for good, supply chain delays and the increasing cost of operating production facilities and research development labs because of requirements like personal protective equipment and redesigned workstations.”

The five-month program helps founders of consumer-packaged goods accelerate their sales, scale up and launch new products. The program provides expert mentorship, peer-to-peer circles and weekly virtual workshops to give founders the tools, skills and connections to grow and thrive. Workshop topics include strategic planning, pricing strategies, sales and marketing, operations and expansion, and Canadian regulations for product packaging.

Remix, one of the companies in the program, makes dark chocolate bark snacks using plant-based protein and upcycled fruit – those fruits considered imperfect because they don’t meet the cosmetic standards of grocery stores. The company is believed to be the first and only Canadian company with a recipe to incorporate beans and upcycled fruit together in snacks.

“Sampling our snacks and demos is one of our main strategies in increasing brand awareness and customer acquisition, but due to COVID-19, that is no longer possible,” says Isabelle Lam, who co-founded Remix along with Jamie Lee.

“As well, many of our retailers had to close down, resulting in a dramatic decrease in our main revenue generating stream. However, with all these challenges, we mustered up the dedication and perseverance to focus, pivot, re-strategize and implement new ideas to our company in ways we hadn’t thought of before.”

Lam and Lee, who grew up in Markham to immigrant parents from Hong Kong, say they are defying the conventional image of start-up founders.

“Being a visible minority, we observed that not a lot of other women of colour like us were leading companies in the food industry,” said Lam, who had a successful pitch on CBC’s Dragon’s Den when she appeared with her business partner last year.

The York Region Food and Beverage Accelerator supports Canada’s food and beverage processing industry, the second-largest manufacturing industry in the country in terms of value of production with the sales of goods manufactured worth $117.8 billion. The program also directly and indirectly benefits the agri-food sector including farms and food processing facilities.

“The food and beverage industry is a key driver to Canada’s economy and this program helps high-potential food and beverage ventures launch new products and scale into mass retail,” said York University’s Vice-President Research & Innovation Amir Asif. “York University is committed to creating positive change for our students, our communities and the world around us. Collaborating with the community on programs like this are a priority for York University as we deepen our presence in the region and construct the new Markham Centre Campus.”

In York Region alone, the agri-food sector contributes $2.7 billion to the economy.

“York Region is home to a vibrant agri-food sector that plays a fundamental role in our local economy,” said York Region Chairman and CEO Wayne Emmerson. “Being able to support the development of the program and continuing our partnership with York University helps local and Canadian food companies scale their businesses and continues to demonstrate that York Region is a leading hub for innovation in Canada.”

In addition to Remix, the seven other companies in the program are:

Choose Life – Vegan Jamaican patties with clean ingredients led by a York alumna.
Culcherd – Dairy-alternative, plant-based cheese and butter.
Backcountry Wok – Dehydrated vegan meals in 100 per cent compostable packaging.
Nufs – Asian-inspired energy bites with high fibre and natural sweetness.
Leo & Co – A paleo, gluten-free bakery specializing in allergen friendly baked goods.
Oat Canada – Vegan oat drink with zero grams of sugar and no dairy.
GotBallz – Grain-free, sugar-free and low-carb buns co-founded by a York alumna.

York research calculates that humans have overshot sustainable use of Earth’s resources

August 21, 2020

As of this past Saturday, humanity has overdrawn its ecological account for the year. Known as Earth Overshoot Day, Aug. 22 marked the day when humans will have used as much from the Earth as the planet can renew in a year. York University produces the data that informs this calculation.

The good news is that Earth Overshoot Day this year arrived 21 days later than in 2019. Coronavirus-induced lockdowns around the world have reduced wood harvests and the burning of fossil fuels. Even so, the world will demand more from nature than can be renewed this year.

York University has partnered with the Global Footprint Network to calculate the ecological footprint and biocapacity of every nation on the planet. This data is needed to determine Earth Overshoot Day.

“At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us the true scale of our global interconnectedness, we have an opportunity to leverage partnership and collaboration to overcome complex global challenges like inequality, COVID-19, and of course, climate change,” said President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda L. Lenton. “York is proud to provide leadership through an international research collaboration like the Ecological Footprint initiative that helps countries determine whether they are on track to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, and gives us the data to calculate Earth Overshoot Day.”

A message from Lenton for Earth Overshoot Day can be found on YouTube.

Eric Miller leads a team of researchers and graduate students in York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies to produce the National Footprint Accounts for the Footprint Data Foundation, a Canadian not-for-profit organization.

Miller and his team measure the carbon footprint, the amount of built-up land or urban sprawl, how much forest is used for timber and paper, how much cropland and pasture is used to produce food and the amount of seafood fished every year. These all add up to humanity’s ecological footprint.

Since 1970, humanity’s ecological footprint has overshot the capacity of nature to sustain it. The resulting ecological debt has been an accumulation of carbon pollution in the atmosphere and declines in biodiversity.

“As we emerge from the pandemic, we must rebuild our economies for well-being and sustainability,” Miller said. “We need regenerative economies that use natural resources at rates that can be sustained.”

York’s measurement of the Ecological Footprint helps to inform individuals, communities, and governments to make better decisions on how to better manage resources, reduce economic risk and improve well-being.

Thirty-seven York U researchers receive more than $1.5 million in SSHRC funding

August 19, 2020

Research York University

Researchers at York University have been awarded more than $1.5 million in funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The grants are part of more than $32 million in funding recently announced for over 1,000 researchers across 69 institutions. The awards support York research that improves the quality of life of Canadians, while advancing knowledge and building understanding of complex sociocultural and economic issues.

“York is delighted to see these outstanding projects receive SSHRC Insight Development Grants,” said Vice-President Research and Innovation Amir Asif. “With topics including: Indigenous resistance; climate risk; chronic illness; artificial intelligence; and migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, it’s clear these ventures will make positive change for our students, our campuses and our local and global communities through the pursuit, preservation and dissemination of new knowledge.”

Thirty-seven researchers received funding for their projects through SSHRC’s Insight Development Grants program, which supports initial stages of research, and enables the development of new research questions, as well as experimentation with new methods, theoretical approaches or ideas. Funding is provided to individuals or teams for projects of up to two years.

The funding was granted for research covering a wide range of topics. Some of the project titles include:

Disjunctive Indigenous Resistance and the Transformation of Political Thought
Disability Wikibase: Modelling and Implementing an Intelligent Bilingual Knowledge Network, through Mapping Disability Advocacy Data Needs Scaled to Local, National, and International Policy Interventions
Climate risk, information environment and cost of equity capital
Undelivered Promises of Immigration? Examining the Integration Pathways of Toronto’s University-Educated Immigrants from France through an Intersectional Approach
Digital Technology Adaptation and Business Ethics: An Exploratory Study of Artificial Intelligence in Canada
(re)Cycling the Self and the City. The Poetics and Politics of Urban Cycling in Mexico: A Geocritical Approach

A complete list of recipients and projects can be found on the SSHRC website.

Preparing for a new academic year

August 4, 2020

The York University Emergency Bursary for students who needed urgent financial aid to cover the unexpected costs of the pandemic is helping students, however, their need for emergency relief has far surpassed expectations.

The following is an important message to York University community members from President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda L. Lenton:

La version française suit la version anglaise.

Dear Colleagues,

As a follow-up to the communication I sent out on Friday, July 31, I am writing to provide further details about what you can expect from the University in the coming weeks and months.

As I indicated last week, while Toronto has moved to Stage 3, the pandemic is still ongoing. The gradual reopening of our campuses will therefore continue to be guided by public health guidelines and the government. Within those guidelines, the goal is to make the best use of our facilities to meet urgent needs of students, faculty and staff in ways that put the health and safety of our community first. As you know, only a select number of courses have been approved for in-person activities in the fall term, and we anticipate that most of our employees will continue to work remotely for the duration of the fall term.

I am confident that our approach will enable the University to provide a high-quality learning experience for our students and allow research activities to proceed.

Gradual return to campus

As it is safe to do, so we will continue to implement a gradual return of campus activities guided by York’s Emergency Operations Centre, and in consultation with other universities, the Government of Ontario, and Public Health officials.

Ramping Up Research

On June 29, in compliance with public health directives and following institutional principles and guidelines, we started to gradually re-open research labs that were closed due to the pandemic. The University began opening research spaces to faculty members who had graduate students near completion, and who had other deadline-driven or seasonal research. We anticipate opening additional research spaces beginning the week of Aug. 17 to support post docs nearing the end of funding, researchers with imminent grant or publication deadlines, and early career researchers whose work cannot continue remotely. The phased return to on-campus research activities is continuing as part of the Ramping Up Research recovery plan.

Fall term 2020

The University has a full selection of academic programming for the fall term, with more than 95 per cent of the 3,500 undergraduate courses being taught through online and remote delivery. We expect that more graduate courses can be offered in person during the fall term due to their generally smaller size and will be able to share more information about those courses shortly. Careful planning has facilitated our ability to offer experiential in-person learning in a select number of courses, including labs, studios and clinical placements, and additional details will be shared shortly.

Winter term 2021

We understand that many students, faculty and instructors are seeking guidance about course delivery modes required for the winter term. Discussions have been ongoing with public health authorities and various levels of government regarding challenges for winter including the likelihood of border openings. Work to clarify plans for the winter term is underway, and more information will be available soon.

Campus safety

The wearing of non-medical mouth and nose coverings continues to be mandatory at York, if maintaining two-meter physical distancing is not possible or predictable in common and shared spaces within buildings. To ensure maximum physical distancing, classrooms, shared offices, library facilities, teaching labs and other academic and non-academic spaces are being reorganized. In high-traffic areas where maintaining physical distancing is not possible, additional protective measures such as plexiglass barriers are being installed. The University is also implementing requirements for deep cleaning prior to reopening new spaces, installing adequate signage and hand sanitizers, and ensuring that systems are in place so that we stay within prescribed limits on the number of people who can congregate indoors and outdoors.

In addition, a training module on health and safety measures has been developed and all faculty and staff will be required to complete the training prior to returning to campus.

Campus information

Updates and information will continue to be posted on our Better Together website, and directly to community members, including:

services available on our campuses;
what is open and closed on campuses;
processes and procedures to maintain the health and safety of our community members; and
where to find important campus information.

A healthy, safe and successful fall term

I would like to express my sincere gratitude and thanks to our students, York’s Emergency Operations Centre Team, the Emergency Policy Group, deans, faculty members, librarians, and staff, for their leadership, perseverance, patience and support as we have successfully navigated these past extraordinary months – while preparing for the extraordinary months still to come.

I remain confident that by working together, we will ensure a healthy, safe and successful start to the new academic year in September.

Sincerely,

Rhonda L. Lenton
President and Vice-Chancellor

Préparation d’une nouvelle année universitaire

Chers collègues,

Pour faire suite au communiqué envoyé le vendredi 31 juillet, je vous écris pour vous donner plus de détails sur ce que vous pouvez attendre de l’Université dans les semaines et mois à venir.

Comme je vous l’ai dit la semaine dernière, bien que Toronto soit passée à l’étape 3 du déconfinement, la pandémie n’est pas finie. La réouverture graduelle de nos campus continue donc d’être orientée par les directives de la santé publique et du gouvernement. Dans le cadre de ces directives, notre objectif est de maximiser l’utilisation de nos installations pour répondre aux besoins urgents du corps étudiant, du corps professoral et du personnel tout en privilégiant la santé et la sécurité de notre communauté. Comme vous le savez, un nombre restreint de cours du trimestre d’automne ont été approuvés pour des activités en présentiel et nous nous attendons à ce que la majorité de nos employés continuent de travailler à distance durant le trimestre d’automne.

Je suis persuadée que cette approche permettra à l’Université de fournir une expérience d’apprentissage de grande qualité aux étudiants et étudiantes et de continuer les activités de recherche.

Retour graduel sur le campus

Nous continuerons à reprendre graduellement les activités sur le campus de façon sécuritaire en suivant les directives du Centre des opérations d’urgence de York et après consultation avec les autres universités, le gouvernement de l’Ontario et les responsables de la santé publique.

Reprise des activités de recherche

Le 29 juin, conformément aux instructions de la santé publique et aux lignes directrices institutionnelles, nous avons commencé à rouvrir graduellement les laboratoires de recherche qui étaient fermés en raison de la pandémie. L’Université a entrepris de rouvrir les locaux de recherche pour les membres du corps professoral dont les étudiants de cycle supérieur achevaient leurs études et ceux qui avaient des échéances à respecter ou qui faisaient des recherches saisonnières. Nous prévoyons ouvrir d’autres espaces de recherche à compter de la semaine du 17 août pour appuyer les étudiants de postdoctorat dont le financement tire à sa fin, les chercheurs ayant des subventions ou des dates de publication imminentes, et les chercheurs en début de carrière qui ne peuvent pas poursuivre leur travail à distance. Le retour graduel des activités de recherche sur les campus continue dans le cadre du plan de reprise de la recherche.

Trimestre d’automne 2020

L’Université offre une gamme complète de programmes académiques pour le trimestre d’automne; plus de 95 pour cent des 3 500 cours de premier cycle seront donnés en ligne ou à distance. Nous comptons offrir plus de cours de cycle supérieur en personne durant le trimestre d’automne en raison de la petite taille des classes; nous vous communiquerons prochainement des informations à ce sujet. Grâce à une planification minutieuse, nous pourrons offrir des possibilités d’éducation expérientielle en personne pour plusieurs cours, comme des laboratoires et des placements cliniques; plus d’information sera fournie prochainement.

Trimestre d’hiver 2021

Nous sommes conscients que de nombreux membres du corps étudiant, du corps professoral et du corps enseignant sont à la recherche de conseils sur les modes de prestation de cours requis pour le trimestre d’hiver. Nous discutons actuellement avec les autorités de santé publique et différents niveaux du gouvernement des défis à relever pour l’hiver, notamment la probabilité d’ouverture des frontières. Nous travaillons sur la clarification des plans pour le semestre d’hiver et de plus amples informations seront bientôt communiquées.

Sécurité sur les campus

Le port d’un couvre-visage non médical continue d’être obligatoire à York quand une distanciation physique de deux mètres n’est pas possible ou envisageable dans les emplacements communautaires et partagés des bâtiments. Pour assurer une distanciation physique maximale, les salles de classe, bureaux partagés, locaux de bibliothèques, laboratoires d’enseignement et autres espaces académiques et non académiques sont en train d’être réorganisés. Des mesures de protection additionnelles comme des barrières en plexiglas sont en cours d’installation dans des lieux achalandés où la distanciation physique est impossible. L’Université a également mis en œuvre des exigences de nettoyage en profondeur avant la réouverture de nouveaux espaces, l’installation de signalisation appropriée et de postes de désinfection des mains; elle s’assure aussi d’avoir des mesures en place pour respecter le nombre maximum de personnes pouvant se rassembler à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur.

De plus, un module de formation sur les mesures de santé et de sécurité a été élaboré; tous les membres du corps professoral et du personnel devront suivre cette formation avant de retourner sur le campus.

Renseignements sur le campus

Des mises à jour et des renseignements continuent d’être publiés sur notre site Web Better Together et sont envoyés directement aux membres de la communauté, notamment au sujet :

des services disponibles sur nos campus;
de ce qui est ouvert et fermé sur nos campus;
des processus et procédures pour maintenir la santé et la sécurité des membres de notre communauté; et
des endroits où on peut trouver des renseignements importants relativement aux campus.

Un trimestre d’automne sécuritaire, en santé et couronné de succès

Je tiens à exprimer ma gratitude et à remercier nos étudiants et étudiants, l’équipe du Centre des opérations d’urgence de York, le groupe des politiques d’urgence, les doyens et doyennes, les membres du corps professoral, les bibliothécaires et les membres du personnel pour leur leadership, leur persévérance, leur patience et leur soutien qui ont permis de gérer efficacement ces derniers mois extraordinaires, alors que nous nous préparons pour les mois extraordinaires encore à venir.

Je suis convaincue qu’en coopérant, nous garantirons la santé, la sécurité et un bon départ pour la nouvelle année universitaire en septembre.

Je vous prie d’agréer mes sincères salutations,

Rhonda L. Lenton
Présidente et vice-chancelière

Toronto moves to stage three – what it means for York University

July 31, 2020

The Campus Walk at York University's Keele location

The following is an important message to York University community members from President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda L. Lenton:

La version française suit la version anglaise.

Dear Colleagues,

Now that Toronto has joined the rest of the GTA in moving to Stage 3, I wanted to write with an update on what it means for York. As always, our first priority is the health and safety of the entire York community.

As the pandemic is ongoing, public health guidelines are still determining how businesses, services and spaces are able to gradually reopen. Universities also continue to work with government on the interpretation of the public health guidelines for higher education. With advice from our Emergency Operations Committee, work is being undertaken to assess how we can best comply with the guidelines for our campuses including how to maintain physical distancing and adhere to the limits regarding the number of people gathered in spaces. Immediate priorities include responding to requests for increased access to labs and offices that are required for colleagues to support the core teaching and research activities of the University. Plans are underway to facilitate these requests including requirements for deep cleaning prior to reopening new spaces, having adequate signage and hand sanitizers, and ensuring that systems are in place so that we stay within prescribed limits on the number of people who can congregate indoors and outdoors.

It will remain necessary for the balance of summer and into the fall to rely on the request protocols that we have in place for anyone needing access to our campuses in order that we are able to comply with the public health guidelines. As colleagues are already aware, only a select number of courses have been approved for in-person activities in the fall term, and we anticipate that most of our employees will continue to work remotely for the duration of the fall term.

Exceptions for community members being on campus include:

those living in residences,
pre-approved in-person teaching and learning for the fall term,
pre-approved on-site research for the summer and fall term,
pre-scheduled appointments with service and support providers,
visiting libraries for curbside pickup, and
faculty and staff providing designated on-campus services.

If you have obtained permission to be on campus, always follow the established safety protocols, including the COVID-19 Screening Checklist.

Other than the above noted exceptions, please continue to work and study remotely.

I want to thank you all once again for your patience and for your support as we work to advance the mission and vision of the University and keep our community safe.

Sincerely,

Rhonda L. Lenton
President and Vice-Chancellor

Toronto passe à l’étape 3 – Incidence sur York

Chers collègues,

Maintenant que Toronto passe à l’étape 3 du déconfinement et rejoint le reste de la région du Grand Toronto, je veux faire le point sur ce que cela signifie pour York. Comme toujours, notre première priorité est la santé et la sécurité de toute notre communauté universitaire.

Comme la pandémie se poursuit, les directives de santé publique continuent de déterminer comment les entreprises, les services et les lieux peuvent progressivement rouvrir. Les universités poursuivent leur collaboration avec le gouvernement sur l’interprétation des directives de santé publique pour l’enseignement supérieur. Forts des conseils de notre comité des opérations d’urgence, nous entreprenons des travaux pour évaluer la meilleure façon de respecter les directives sur nos campus, notamment sur la façon de maintenir la distanciation physique et de respecter les limites sur les rassemblements. Nous accordons la priorité en ce moment aux demandes d’accès aux laboratoires et aux bureaux que nos collègues doivent utiliser pour soutenir les activités d’enseignement et de recherche de base de l’Université. Des plans sont en cours pour accorder ces demandes, en répondant aux exigences de nettoyage en profondeur avant la réouverture de nouveaux espaces, en mettant en place une signalisation adéquate et des désinfectants pour les mains, et en assurant que des systèmes sont en place pour que nous respections les limites prescrites quant au nombre de personnes pouvant se rassembler à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur.

Afin de nous conformer aux directives de santé publique, il sera nécessaire de respecter les protocoles de demande que nous avons mis en place pour toute personne ayant besoin d’accéder à nos campus pendant le reste de l’été et cet automne. Comme des collègues le savent déjà, seul un certain nombre de cours ont été approuvés pour des activités en personne au cours du trimestre d’automne. Nous prévoyons également que la plupart de nos employés continueront à travailler à distance pendant tout le trimestre d’automne.

Exceptions possibles pour être sur le campus :

Habiter dans une résidence,
Enseignement et apprentissage en personne préapprouvés pendant le trimestre d’automne,
Recherche en personne préapprouvée pendant les trimestres d’été et d’automne,
Rendez-vous planifiés avec des fournisseurs de services et d’assistance,
Visite de bibliothèques pour ramassage à l’auto,
Corps professoral et personnel fournissant des services désignés sur le campus.

Si vous avez obtenu l’autorisation d’être sur le campus, suivez toujours les protocoles de sécurité établis et notamment la Liste de contrôle pour le dépistage de la COVID-19.

Sauf pour les exceptions ci-dessus, veuillez continuer à travailler et à étudier à distance.

Je tiens à vous remercier toutes et tous une fois de plus pour votre patience et votre soutien au cours de cette période où nous travaillons à faire avancer la mission et la vision de l’Université et à assurer la sécurité de notre communauté.

Bonne journée,

Rhonda L. Lenton
Présidente et vice-chancelière

One-stop collection and analysis with Archive-It and the Archives Unleashed Project

July 31, 2020

Internet Archives Project FEATURED image for the YFile email

Internet Archive servers (photo by Ian Milligan). — Internet Archive servers. Photo by Ian Milligan

Suppose you’re an archivist, librarian, or historian who’s trying to document and preserve for posterity a narrative of the COVID-19 pandemic or the ongoing Black Lives Matters protests. You’ll naturally be gathering documents from the web, and with tools available today, it won’t be difficult to accumulate thousands or even millions of relevant records. How can you make sure that a scholar down the road can actually use the material that you’ve collected?

Right now, working with data at scale is difficult for historians and other scholars in the humanities and social sciences. Since 2017, the Archives Unleashed Project has been at the forefront of making this possible, through accessible tools, platforms, and learning materials. This next project will combine the Archives Unleashed Project’s analytical tools with the Internet Archive’s Archive-It service, a best-in-class web archiving and access solution and infrastructure, to further lower barriers in web archiving and provide an end-to-end process for collecting and studying archived web records and data.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $1,084,087 CAD grant to the University of Waterloo to support the “Integrating Archives Unleashed Cloud with Archive-It” project. Led by Professor Ian Milligan, from the University of Waterloo’s Department of History, alongside co-investigators Jimmy Lin, professor and Cheriton Chair at Waterloo’s Cheriton School of Computer Science, Nick Ruest, digital assets librarian in the Digital Scholarship Infrastructure department of York University Libraries, and Jefferson Bailey, director of Web Archiving & Data Services at the Internet Archive, this project represents the next stage of the Archives Unleashed Project. With this funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the project hopes to bridge the current gulf between web archiving collection, access, and data-driven analysis.

Web archiving is the process of collecting portions of the World Wide Web to ensure the information is preserved in an archive for future researchers, historians, and the public. It’s critical to preserve webpages: we have all encountered “404 Not Found” errors as we browse the web, reminders that information is continually lost, gone missing, or is deleted. Think of how many people have experienced the world during the social distancing of COVID-19: our news, social interactions, learning, working, and beyond. “Data is rapidly becoming the building blocks of our histories,” Milligan explains. As future historians try to piece together our current moment, from exploring misinformation to privacy concerns to social media phenomena, they will need tools and platforms to make sense of all this information.

Such a project is only possible through interdisciplinary collaboration. Partnering with librarians and archivists such as Bailey and Ruest is essential both to be able to apply cutting-edge approaches to the ethically-informed extraction and arrangement of web archival data, but also for the creation of documentation and learning guides to ensure people can use these materials. Combined with Lin’s information retrieval background, and Milligan’s subject-matter expertise of a historian, the interdisciplinary team is confident that future users will be able to make sense of the web archive data their tools generate.

This project represents a follow-up to an effort that began in 2017 with the same name, also funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to develop web archive search and data analysis tools. Armed with these powerful tools, researchers, scholars and archivists now have the ability to access, share and investigate our online history since the early days of the World Wide Web, including many culturally significant events that are interwoven into the basic fabric of our collective consciousness such as 9/11.

The success of Archives Unleashed has resulted in The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funding a new three-year phase of the project. This new effort will combine the services that Archives Unleashed has developed with those of the Internet Archive’s Archive-It and Archive-It Research Services programs. Archive-It is a web archiving and digital preservation service used by over 700 institutions around the world. Users, from universities and cultural organizations to governments and NGOs, have used the service to preserve tens of billions of web records and many petabytes of data. “Researchers, from both the sciences and the humanities, are finally starting to realize the massive trove of archived web materials that can support a wide variety of computational research,” said Bailey. “We are excited to scale up our collaboration with Archives Unleashed to make the petabytes of web and data archives collected by Archive-It partners and others more useful for scholarly analysis.”

“Our first stage of the Archives Unleashed Project,” explains Lin, “built a stand-alone service that turns web archive data into a format that scholars could easily use. We developed several tools, methods and cloud-based platforms that allow researchers to download a large web archive from which they can analyze all sorts of information, from text and network data to statistical information. The next logical step is to integrate our service with the Internet Archive, which will allow a scholar to run the full cycle of collecting and analyzing web archival content through one portal.”

In the example of future historians struggling with thousands upon thousands of COVID-19 pages, with Archives Unleashed Project tools and platforms, they could take all the documents collected about COVID-19 and use them to explore research questions such as what were the most common words people used to describe the pandemic, or what were the links to information about COVID-19. Were people linking to the Public Health Agency of Canada, to Public Health Ontario, to the World Health Organization, to various news websites, or to personal websites, maybe even conspiracy theory websites?

The funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will make the indispensable integration between collection and these forms of analysis a reality. Ruest explains, “With this new funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the integration of Archives Unleashed and the Internet Archive’s analysis service will further unleash the potential of web archive data. Imagination, not tools, will become the limit of scholarship.”

SSHRC invests $4.7M in York researchers studying issues related to individuals and society

July 8, 2020

York University has received more than $4.7 million in funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) as part of the 2019-20 SSHRC Insight Grant competition.

The funds totalling $4,749,532 will be dispersed among 29 researchers at York, and are among a total of $91 million awarded to more than 1,253 researchers from 60 different Canadian institutions.

“York University is delighted to see 29 researchers receive SSHRC Insight Grants for a total funding of well over $4 million dollars,” said Amir Asif, vice-president research and innovation. “These projects are stellar examples of how we aspire, through our research, to better understand the human condition and to employ the knowledge we gain in the service and betterment of society. I want to wish all recipients every success as they move forward with their projects.”

The projects undertaken by the funded researchers will address topics such as:

social media and mental well-being;
how climate risks affect banks’ financial losses, liquidity and decisions related to loans; and
transitional housing and permanent housing for homeless people.

SSHRC is dedicated to supporting an inclusive and diverse research environment. Of the funded researchers, 644 (51 per cent) self-identified as women, 34 (three per cent) as Indigenous peoples, 168 (13 per cent) as members of visible minorities and 40 (three per cent) as persons with disabilities.

See the complete list of Insight Grant recipients.

The Insight Grants support research excellence in the social sciences and humanities. Funding is available to both emerging and established scholars for research initiatives of two to five years. Stable support for long-term research initiatives is central to advancing knowledge. It enables scholars to address complex issues about individuals and societies, and to further our collective understanding.

In May, SSHRC announced that it had permanently changed the Insight Grants submission deadline to Oct. 1 from Oct. 15. For more information on this subject, consult the news article.

York University announces 12 York Research Chair appointments

July 1, 2020

Eight emerging and four established researchers across the University will join the York Research Chairs (YRC) program, York University’s internal counterpart to the national Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program, which recognizes outstanding researchers. Two of these appointments are renewals.

These YRCs belong to the seventh cohort of researchers to be appointed since the establishment of the program in 2015. These YRCs’ terms start July 1 and run through to June 30, 2025.

“Our new YRCs exemplify the extraordinary contributions of York’s researchers,” said President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda L. Lenton. “York is committed to ensuring that our research, scholarship and creative activities are focused on the needs of the communities we serve and on the complex challenges facing our society – from climate change to racism. In the current context, as the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, research focused on creating positive change is even more important. The YRC program is central to that commitment, and we are proud to support the ongoing excellence of our outstanding researchers through this initiative.”

The YRC program seeks to build research recognition and capacity, with excellence in research, scholarship and associated creative activity serving as selection criteria. “This program mirrors the federal CRC program to broaden and deepen the impact of research chairs at York in building and intensifying world-renowned research across the institution. These new YRCs are undertaking visionary work that has local, national and international impact,” said Vice-President Research & Innovation Amir Asif.

Tier I YRCs are open to established research leaders at the rank of full professor. Tier II YRCs are aimed at emerging research leaders within 15 years of their first academic appointment.

Tier I York Research Chairs

Ilijas Farah
York Research Chair in Foundations of Operator Algebras

Ilijas Farah, Faculty of Science, singlehandedly developed the field of the applications of logic to operator algebras, revealing deep and unexpected connections between the foundations of mathematics and some of the most concrete and ubiquitous mathematical objects. A top researcher in both of these hitherto unrelated subjects, he was invited to speak at the International Congress of Mathematicians. He was also fortunate to supervise some spectacularly talented PhD students.

Stephen Gaetz
York Research Chair in Homelessness and Research Impact

Stephen Gaetz, Faculty of Education, is the director of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, the Homeless Hub, and Making the Shift – Youth Homelessness Social Innovation Lab. He has a long-standing interest in understanding homelessness – its causes, how it is experienced and potential solutions. His research is defined by his desire to ‘make research matter’ through working in collaboration with partners to conduct and mobilize research so as to have an impact on policy and practice.

Obiora Okafor
York Research Chair in International and Transnational Legal Studies

Obiora Okafor, Osgoode Hall Law School, has had his YRC renewed. This renewal supports the continuation of Okafor’s research on Canada’s human rights engagements with various African countries, including in the sub-areas of economic and social rights, judicial strengthening, institution building, democratization and poverty alleviation. This work includes a study on Canada’s human rights engagements with the African Union as a body.

Laurie Wilcox
York Research Chair in 3D Vision

Laurie M. Wilcox, Faculty of Health, is a member of the Centre for Vision Research and VISTA (Vision: Science to Applications). Her research focuses on the neural mechanisms responsible for human depth perception and how depth information is processed under complex real-world conditions. She has a long history of collaboration with industry partners, for instance in 3D film (IMAX, Christie) and more recently in virtual and augmented reality (Qualcomm Canada) and image quality (VESA).

Tier 2 York Research Chairs

Ali Abdul-Sater
York Research Chair in the Regulatory Mechanisms of Inflammation

Ali Abdul-Sater, Faculty of Health, is interested in identifying novel regulators of inflammation and understanding how these regulators control immunity and the inflammatory response. He is pursuing several avenues of research: the roles of the protein TRAF1 in controlling inflammatory and autoimmune diseases; the role of Type I interferons (proteins made in response to the presence of viruses) in bacterial and viral responses; and how exercise regulates the immune response.

FES Professor Sheila Colla — Sheila Colla

Sheila Colla
York Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Conservation Science

Sheila Colla, Faculty of Environmental Studies, is an ecologist using scientific principles to address real-world conservation issues. Her research focuses on the conservation of lesser understood native species such as bees, butterflies and flowering plants. She works closely with environmental NGOs, landowners, academic partners and government agencies to implement conservation management based on the best available science. She wants her research to inform relevant environmental and agricultural policy.

Mike Daly
York Research Chair in Planetary Science

Mike Daly, whose YRC was renewed, is in the Lassonde School of Engineering. This appointment recognizes Daly’s outstanding contribution to space-flight instrumentation research at York. The YRC will enable his participation in NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu and the return of Canada’s first sample of material from another solar system. Knowledge gained from Bennu could provide key information about the origins of Earth and the solar system.

Sarah Flicker
York Research Chair in Community-Based Participatory Research

Sarah Flicker, Faculty of Environmental Studies, is an expert in community development, health promotion and adolescent well-being. Flicker’s innovative program of research focuses on the engagement of youth and other allied actors in environmental, sexual and reproductive justice. She works across methodologies using participatory approaches for social change.

Eve Haque
York Research Chair in Linguistic Diversity and Community Vitality

Eve Haque, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, has research and teaching interests that include multiculturalism, white settler colonialism and language policy, with a focus on the regulation and representation of racialized groups in white settler societies. Her current research focus is on the recognition and language rights of non-official language communities in Canada. She is also the author of Multiculturalism Within a Bilingual Framework: Language, Race and Belonging in Canada.

Ali Sadeghi-Naini
York Research Chair in Quantitative Imaging and Smart Biomarkers

Ali Sadeghi-Naini, Lassonde School of Engineering, is an emerging leader in multi-disciplinary research at the intersection of AI, biomedical engineering, biophysics and oncology. His seminal studies demonstrated, for the first time, that quantitative ultrasound biomarkers at low frequencies can detect cell death induced by anti-cancer therapies. He seeks to develop quantitative imaging and biomarker technologies integrated with innovative machine learning and computational modeling techniques for precision medicine and personalized therapeutics.

Valérie A. M. Schoof
York Research Chair in Primate Behavioural Endocrinology

Valérie A.M. Schoof, Glendon Campus, is a primatologist whose research program, funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and New Frontiers in Research Fund, focuses on the ecology, sociality, physiology and life history of wild primates in East Africa, and the biological, geographical and cultural factors influencing human-wildlife interactions. She is also the director of the Primate Behavioural Endocrinology Lab, recently funded by Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Research Fund.

Marlis Schweitzer
York Research Chair in Theatre and Performance History

Marlis Schweitzer, School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design, is a theatre and performance historian with a specialization in 19th and early-20th century Anglo-American performance. Schweitzer plans to use her YRC to explore urgent questions about the relationship between historical casting practices, theatre’s role in the circulation and perpetuation of racist stereotypes, and the onstage representation of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) individuals in contemporary Anglo-American performance.

Four York graduate students receive prestigious Vanier Scholarships

July 1, 2020

Four York University PhD students conducting cutting-edge research have been awarded the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship for 2020.

Valued at $50,000 per year for three years during doctoral studies, the Vanier scholarship is awarded by the Government of Canada to doctoral students whose work displays excellence in three equally weighted selection criteria: academic excellence, research potential and leadership.

From the social impact of climate change in Ghana to the role of vocality in women’s resistance in India, this year’s Vanier Scholars once again show the paradigm-shifting ambition and global impact of York research.

Vanier Scholars

Cameron Butler
Anthropology

Cameron Butler’s thesis “Fertilizing Settler Bodies: Tracing Global Phosphorus Transfers through the Fraser Valley, BC” will trace the movements of phosphorus around the planet in order to understand how the modern Canadian food system is sustained.

An essential nutrient for agriculture and historically, phosphorus historically went through smaller local cycles where soil phosphate levels remained at sufficient levels. With industrial agricultural production, farmers have had to apply fertilizers to maintain high levels of phosphorus in the soil and allow for large crop yields. Producing fertilizers has meant mining phosphate rock, which exists in few places on Earth. On a global scale, intensive farming and fertilizer use is rapidly depleting phosphorus reserves, raising concerns about future scarcity and the potential global collapse of our modern agricultural system.

“However,” says Butler, “people in the global north play a much larger role in depleting global phosphorus reserves, despite the universally shared impacts. My research project ask how white settlers in Canada specifically are implicated in global movements of phosphorus, how they knowingly or unknowingly depend on the labour of people of colour and migrants to sustain them, and whether they are aware of their own role in these systems.”

To answer these questions, Butler will conduct fieldwork in diverse spaces of the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, and explore how people form relationships with one another, locally and globally, through the phosphorus that passes between them. “Fundamentally, I’m interested in how the global distribution of phosphorus across the globe is being rapidly changed through systems of white supremacy, settler-colonialism and capitalism,” he adds. “Through this research, my goal is to understand what ethical responsibilities white settlers like myself have to the vast array of people, nonhuman beings, and places that sustain us.”

Rajat Nayyar
Theatre

Rajat Nayyar seeks to study the power of women’s songs and vocality in rural North India as a form of everyday resistance within patriarchal social contexts.

His proposed dissertation is titled “Women’s Vocality, Radical Sociality: Re-Imagining Power, Folklore & Audiovisual Ethnography in Rural North India,” and looks at North India from the 19th century onward, when forms of women’s entertainment attracted the attention of British colonial lawmakers, upper-caste social reformers, Hindu nationalists, revivalists, and an emerging middle class that sought to initiate change in the social and customary behaviour of women and lower castes. Embarrassed by the women’s public gatherings and their “vulgar” folk songs, these social reformers aimed to construct “new women” who would enjoy the benefits of British education while cherishing the innate values of “Indian womanhood.”

“My ethnographic, community-based research aims to address how conventional understandings of the relationship between caste, class, gender, religion and power may be questioned through the study of Indian women’s folk songs,” says Nayyar. “Focusing on ‘gaari’ songs that hurl abuses at men during wedding rituals, my research will explore the ways in which these expressions of vocal resistance are improvised, crafted and performed in everyday life, both within and outside the gendered ritual context. I will study the politics, performativity and sonic potentiality of voice as a form of social and political agency. Furthermore, I will provide filmmaking and acting workshops to community members at village schools, in order to improvise and co-produce a series of films.” In addition to exposing community members to a new perspective of India’s colonial history, these workshops will equip participants with digital filmmaking and archiving skills.
His dissertation will also be accompanied by a self-reflexive ethnographic film and an analysis of the activist potential of collaborative and creative research methodologies in safeguarding communities’ folklore.

Laura Keane
Mathematics and Statistics

Laura Keane’s research interests focus on using applied mathematics to solve real-world problems. Her research, titled Hybrid mathematical modelling, analysis, and simulation to improve design and operation of lithium-ion batteries, tackles an evergreen global problem: energy.

“We are facing increasing global energy demands due to rising levels of industrialization in developing countries,” says Keane. “In addition to this, there is increasing pressure to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels in order to combat climate change. One solution to these energy dilemmas are lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). LIBs are rechargeable batteries which are commonly used in portable devices such as mobile phones. They have the highest energy densities among all rechargeable batteries which makes them an attractive candidate for powering technologies of the future, such as electric vehicles. However, in order to move to a predominately battery-powered society there are several issues that need to be addressed in relation to battery operation and safety.”

For her PhD research, Keane will seek to develop models of LIBs, using mathematical tools and numerical simulations to investigate the factors hindering LIB performance such as thermal runaway (the process by which a battery overheats), short circuiting (the failure of an electrical circuit) and capacity fade (the slow loss of charge over multiple charge and discharge cycles). The overall goal is to improve battery operation, design and performance.

Balikisu Osman
Environmental Studies

Since 1960, Ghana has witnessed several climatic changes, including an increase in annual temperature by 1 degree Celsius and a decrease in rainfall by 2.4 per cent per decade. These changes have exposed the country to weather extremes such as droughts, floods and windstorms. Yet, agricultural activities are highly dependent on rain-fed schemes, as only about 0.2 per cent of the farmlands are under irrigation.

In the northern part of Ghana, the grassy savanna landscape combines with persistent chronic poverty situation to further exacerbate households’ vulnerability to climate risks and food insecurity, says Osman. “Through the Ghana climate change policy, the government prioritizes food security and has a strategic focus to develop climate-resilient agriculture and food systems. A major challenge to this policy, however, is the paucity of research identifying indigenous knowledge and best practices to achieve the policy goals.”

Osman will contribute with her work, titled “Analyzing climate risks and management responses for food security in northern Ghana.”

“One of the objectives of my research is to address this identified need by building on the existing literature and providing empirical evidence to advance our knowledge on the effects of climate risks as well as management responses in the area of food security,” she says. “My research underscores the importance of indigenous climate risk responses and helps understand how they contribute to sustainable food security. It also serves as a basis to gather experiences and share knowledge to guide Ghana’s climate change strategies and actions for the food and agricultural sector.”

York University creates new hive of interdisciplinary bee research

July 1, 2020

Researchers from disciplines across York University, including biologists, social scientists and mathematicians, will develop a hive of research when York’s new Centre for Bee Ecology, Evolution and Conservation (BEEc) becomes an Organized Research Unit (ORU) starting July 1.

The Senate of York University approved the move earlier this year to make BEEc the University’s 26th ORU, enabling it to dive deeper into the crisis affecting the health and decline of bees globally.

“York University’s ORUs have a strong history of highly innovative and collaborative research,” said Vice-President Research & Innovation Amir Asif. “Steeped in York’s tradition of collegial interdisciplinarity, ORUs serve as synergistic hubs for participatory research programs that bring together expertise from across disciplines.”

The new ORU will provide a place where experts can collaborate on innovative, cutting-edge research on bees to help further knowledge, train future leaders in the field, educate the public and affect policy that will make a difference for pollinators locally, as well as globally.

“We are thrilled that our proposal was approved by Senate. The bee crisis is multidimensional and there is no simple solution. BEEc will allow us to bring talented biologists and mathematicians, but also engineers, social scientists and economists to help us answer the big questions in the field,” says Amro Zayed, research chair in Genomics and BEEc director.

BEEc researchers will study the health, behaviour, biodiversity, genomics and conservation of bees, with the goal of enhancing their long-term sustainability, and that of the important crops and plants that rely on bees for pollination.

Some of the core researchers include:

Associate Professor Amro Zayed of the Faculty of Science uses genomics to understand why native bees and honey bees are declining, and develops tools to circumvent these declines.

Assistant Professor Sheila Colla of the Faculty of Environmental Studies researches native bees to find out why they’re in decline and develops conservation efforts with a special focus on at-risk bumblebees.

Professor Laurence Packer, a Distinguished Research Professor, studies native bees and is constantly contributing new species records to the global list of over 20,300 species. He has built and continues to maintain the largest Canadian collection of bees, currently estimated at over 500,000 specimens from all over the globe.

Professor Sandra Rehan of the Faculty of Science is an expert on social insect genomics and pollinator health combining molecular evolution, behavioural ecology, population genetics and phylogenetics to understand the sociobiology, biogeography, nutritional requirements and sustainability of bees.

Professor Jane Heffernan of the Faculty of Science and director of York’s Centre for Disease Modelling is applying her modelling skills to help understand how pathogens and pests affect colony health.

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